


Nectarine

by ifreet



Category: Life, Standoff
Genre: Crossover Pairing, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2009-07-28
Updated: 2009-07-28
Packaged: 2017-10-10 10:27:53
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 841
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/98722
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ifreet/pseuds/ifreet
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p><i>Sometimes, Matt forgot how much Charlie liked fruit.</i></p>
            </blockquote>





	Nectarine

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you to sisterofdream for a quick answer to an odd question and to akarui_rynka for not laughing too hard at my decision to write fruit porn.

Sometimes, Matt forgot how much Charlie liked fruit.

Which, okay, might seem ridiculous, since everyone who met Charlie knew he liked fruit. Hell, he'd be willing to bet that a good number of people who'd never set eyes on the man knew he was crazy for fruit. It was near the top of the list of Things Known about Charlie Crews: cop, ex-con, rich, likes fruit.

But the things everyone knew about Charlie tended to be, if not exactly wrong, then at least misleading, and at some point Matt must have lumped the whole fruit obsession in with the rest. And half the time Charlie used fruit as a prop anyway. A cop eating an apple at a crime scene was disarming -- harmless, less than serious; a detective peeling an orange during an interview was distracting. And fun fruit facts had served to derail more conversations than Matt really cared to think about. He wasn't sure why Charlie had decided that Crazy Fruit Guy was the persona he wanted to project, but it seemed like it worked for him.

It worked well enough that Matt had lost sight of the true, sincere appreciation Charlie had for fresh fruit. An appreciation that apparently approached pornographic levels.

He hung back in the door to the pool and watched. Charlie looked happy and... unguarded, sitting back in the shade, rather than out by the direct and doubled light of the sunlit pool. He was so totally focused on something fist-sized and reddish orange clutched in his right hand, that he hadn't so much as glanced at Matt. The expression that washed over his face between each bite -- that small, real smile and a certain relaxing around the eyes -- was the one Matt had learned to watch for, that one that said he'd just done something very, very right. Matt almost felt like an intruder or maybe voyeur, but turning away from Charlie looking like that was just impossible.

Charlie tipped the fruit for another bite, revealing a large, dark pit at the fruit's center. A peach, maybe? He bit down, then quick ducked his head for a second, slurping bite. It was an oddly graceless motion for Charlie -- more than that, it didn't work, as juice ran down his wrist and arm to drip on his shorts. Didn't look like it was the first time, either -- the cement by his knee was well and truly splattered. He looked like nothing so much as a kid with an ice cream cone that was melting too fast to keep up with; he had that same total sense immersion and disregard for dignity. Then Charlie grinned and licked a line up his arm before sucking at the welling fruit and drove that line of thought right out of his head.

He _had_ to be doing that on purpose. Matt tried and failed to stifle a groan.

Charlie's head turned at the sound, and when his eyes landed on Matt, his smile grew larger. "Matt!" he called, like him being there was the best surprise Charlie could imagine.

And, okay, so Charlie just really liked fruit. Matt was not jealous of a piece of fruit.

"Hey," he replied and stepped outside to sit beside him in the house's shade. At this angle, the water seemed even brighter. He shifted so he could see Charlie without squinting and nodded toward the fruit, now more than three-quarters pit. "Whatcha got there?"

"Nectarine. It's big, so I thought it might not be good. Sometimes bigger fruit varieties have less flavor, have you noticed that? But it is." Charlie held it out in offering, but Matt shook his head. Charlie shrugged and finished it off. Matt was watching for it now, so he caught the way Charlie's eyes fluttered closed in what could have been a slow blink. Charlie set the pit down and moved to wipe his hand on his leg. Matt intercepted his wrist, brought the hand up, and licked a stripe up the inside of his arm, eyes on Charlie's.

Sweet. He scraped his teeth lightly against the pulse point of his inner wrist. Charlie's pupils widened, and his breath came faster. More fruit-sweetness here, but beneath that the salt of Charlie's sweat. He licked across Charlie's palm, and he shivered despite the summer heat. He took in each of Charlie's fingers in turn, licking, sucking, cleaning every sticky-sweet trace off before moving to the next. When at last Matt let Charlie's thumb slip free and loosened his hold on Charlie's wrist, Charlie's eyes were heavy-lidded and his breath was brushing against his mouth.

"Nectarine, huh? You got any more in the kitchen?" He made as if to stand, and Charlie yanked him back down and kissed him until he stopped laughing, until he gasped and dug his fingers into Charlie's shoulders, until they lay boneless and more or less at one with the cement.

"I've got peaches, too," Charlie announced and scrambled up, pulling Matt up with him.

Matt shook his head and let himself be tugged inside.


End file.
